Chapter 32

**Winter**



I wake up laying in a hospital bed. My head is pounding. Wait it’s comes back to me. I was fighting with Cole, and I think I fell. It is all kind of foggy. Well, whatever. I'm not going to stay in this bed like an invalid. I sit up. My head is splitting with pain. There is a needle in my arm and some other wires hanging off me. I rip them all off and push myself out of the bed. Where are my clothes? I'm in some sort of robe thing that is open in the back.

Great, they took all my clothes, and left me in a tablecloth. I need to find something to wear. I glance around the room. Besides the bed and machines, there is a tv, a bathroom, and behind a curtain there is a chair. Sitting on the chair is a pair of folded up sweatpants, a shirt, underwear, and a sports bra. Thank you whoever left these for me. I go over to the mirror in the bathroom first to take a look at my body. I am covered in bruises. I really need to remember what happened. I slip into the clothes. I don’t know why I put the bra on, I never wear one except when I am training. It was there though, so I put it on.

I head over to the door and leave the room. My head and body feel like I just spent a week as a punching bag. I don’t see anyone outside the room except for a few people behind a desk. I'm guessing they work here. They all seem busy. I make my way out of the Medic center. I need to get back to the packhouse. As I'm leaving, I hear people yelling from the building.

“Where did she go? Where is the Luna.”

Oh fuck, I am not going back in there. Even though the idea of running right now feels impossible, I start running back to the packhouse.

“Winter, where are you? Where did you go?” I hear Cole through our mind link with.

“I am going to the packhouse.”

Concentrating on the mind link is terribly painful at the moment. He is still trying to talk to me, but all I can hear is buzzing. So, I decide to block out the mind link. He will just have to talk to me when he gets home. I get to the packhouse and take the long walk up to bed.

I crawl into bed and try to get comfortable. I have to lay on my stomach. It is painful but resting on my back feels even worse. I'm trying to remember what happened last night. I remember fighting with Cole because he was being controlling. I went out drinking with Gale... Damn, I can't remember all of it. Serves me right for getting wasted without Cole there to make sure I got home okay.

I'm just starting to doze off when Cole comes in.

“Hey” he says.

“Hi” I say back as I raise my head to look at him. “What happened to your face?”

“You don’t remember what happened?”

“No. I remember drinking with Gale. Then nothing really.”

“I can remind you, but we need to get you back to the medic center.” Cole says.

“Yeah, I'm not going back there. Can you please just tell me, what the hell happened to us.”

“Let me at least text the doc and have him come here to check on you. What happened was you were very intoxicated, so I brought you back from the bar. When we got back home, we were both still upset with each other. Things got bad resulting in my face. Then you had an accident when you fell down the stairs. You hit your head pretty bad. So, I rushed you over to the medic center.”

“Oh... Well, I'm sorry about your face.”

“No, I'm sorry I didn’t let you hit me more. If I had not dodged, you wouldn’t be so banged up.”

I feel so stupid. This whole thing could have been avoided if I had stayed home and just worked it out with Cole.



**Cole**



I feel so guilty about what Winter is going through. We still need to work out what we have been fighting about, but she needs to rest. So, that can wait. Back at the medic center the doc told me she has a concussion, but she will heal fine. I'll have to ask him, when he gets here, about the memory loss.

When Doctor Rodriguez arrives, Winter is sleeping. As he goes in to check on her, I ask him about her memory. He says that is normal, especially since she was drunk at the time of the accident. Then he starts her checkup. He seems surprised as he remarks that her bruises are already fading. He has to wake her up to check her vitals and the stiches on her head.

“Hello there how are you feeling?”

“A lot better than I was earlier. The sleep seemed to help.”

He checks her stitches and looks astonished. “The sleep definingly seemed to help. Your wound has completely healed.”

That is impossible. It has not even been a day since she was injured. “Doctor Rodriguez how is she healing so fast?” I ask.

He looks puzzled. “I'm not sure Alpha. She should be taking a lot longer to heal. If she continues to mend at this rate, she should be fine in the next few hours; tomorrow at the latest. This is a medical marvel.”

I am still curious how she is healing so fast. Maybe Byron has heard of or met someone else who can heal fast like Winter. He has been around a long time and has met werewolves from all over the world. I have to call him. He prefers not to text. He claims that the buttons are too small for his fingers. I personally think he just gets too frustrated trying to understand acronyms and emojis. I step across the room to give him a call, while the doc removes Winter’s stitches. He answers quickly and agrees to meet me in my office in about half an hour.

Once the doc has finished, I give Winter a soft kiss on her head, and leave her to rest some more. I head down to my office to wait for Byron. Byron arrives and takes a seat. “I was wondering when you were going to call me in. Have you started to notice some strange things about your mate? Maybe some things that don’t add up exactly right. Perhaps she has some weird traditions she insists on upholding, or has she displayed a protective nature over you?”